Honestly I miss suffering from a major LSS of Joe Mari Chan's Christmas melodies.
In less than a week it will be Christmas. We Filipinos take this really seriously for as early as September we are all excited to don our gay apparels and go fa-la-la-la. But not this year. Even lesser than last. Understandably so. We are about to enter the second year of the pandemic --- and keeping us apart has been a standard for making sure we all get to outlive the threat of the virus.
And ever since we have been pulled down to Alert Level 2, malls have come back to life (with whatever shops that have not shut down their businesses). Restaurants are jampacked as if people have been let loose and are craving for anything but home cooked meals ... or those delivered by Grab or Lala Moves. Kids are scampering all over activity areas and open spaces --- signifying to an attempt to impersonate the Old Normal except that we are still wearing masks and still threatened by the dreaded Omicron.
So why is it that I still do not have the jittery, happy feeling that Christmas is just around the corner as the world celebrates love and sharing?
Some say that age has got something to do with the attitude you have about the Yuletide season. As you grow older, the thrill diminishes ... because instead of anticipating the gifts you are about to receive, you worry about the gifts you have to give. It is harder to put to your mind that, hey ... you do not have to do so but you are pressured by tradition and expectations. Worse, you hate that Filipino brazenness ( hopefully not impropriety) when somebody not necessarily that close to you asks, "Huy, ha? Yung Pamasko ko, ha?"
Well, I am still trying to feel that it's Christmas. Why am I not hearing Joe Mari Chan's songs? Or even Kumukutikutitap?
As early as mid-November, I had my house all dolled up for the holidays.
I have checked my Christmas list and made plans for a post-Christmas dinner with my closest friends here at home ... and yet, despite all this, it still does not feel like it's that time of the year. I look at the street where I live and there is a dearth of Christmas lights ... as if everybody is thinking more of Meralco than Santa Claus.
Yes, it must be the pandemic.
Or this surreal atmosphere brought by toxic Philippine politics.
And then came the winds of Odette with all the devastation left in the islands of Central Visayas --- practically levelling down the haven that was Siargao.
And this is less than a week before Christmas as I feel so saddened by the devastation nature has left on our people making one question if merriment has become inappropriate at a time such as this. I heard about the damage done to Bohol and I wonder how the affected families will spend the next two weeks meant for celebration ... quiet or otherwise.
But then again, how do you put these things in a much larger context? Yes, somebody will mutter that oh-so-overused phrase Christmas is in the Heart ... and you try to understand what that means considering what surrounds you.
Well, the least we can do is be grateful that we are still here ... and that we are surviving.
That we are resilient. But again, as somebody posted in social media, "It is already exhausting to be resilient." We must carry on ... learn from all this to justify why we are still alive in the here and now.
We must really mean it when we say Merry Christmas. We must still find happiness regardless of whatever state we are in because we need the strength and determination to move on. That can only come when we still have aspirations for a better whatever.
Yes, I am wrong. Christmas has got nothing to do with annual obligations.
This season is all about the humanity in our beings as we find an opportunity to express our love and gratitude regardless of the god we give our prayers.
It is about moving on, determined that the new year that lies ahead will be better and more fulfilling than the one we have just lived through.
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